Imperative
by CDR Drat
Summary: In the first half of 21st century, humanity discovers something that will forever change the face of it's homeworld, and it's place in the grand scheme of things.


**NAVY SEAL TEAM 6, undisclosed location, Democratic Republic of Congo. 2019**

Captain Tony was not happy. This should have been his time to relax. After two successive infiltration into People's Republic of China's defence initiative to get the plans of their Orbital Strike Schematics, he thought he would have a relative downtime with his new Navy SEALS commission. He should have been resting in Wichita with his girl.

But he wasn't.

He was in jungles of Democratic Republic of Congo with PLA Special Operation Forces in hot pursuit to capture what could be the greatest of human discovery. As his scout was looking for possible hide-outs in the next couple of hours till they received further orders from FLEETCOM, his eyes were fixated on the scenery that he be held in front of him. A rather large lake, its shores canopied beautifully by the jungle's thick cover. In the stark mid of the lake was an island, small but equally beautiful. But unlike the shore of the lake, the island had a long stretch of exposed land, on which a combat team was extracted. When his Chinook was hovering past the city nearest to this site, he wondered what a HAL Dhruv was doing so south of Sahara or so north of Cape Town. As far as he knew, the only African country India sold its choppers to were either Egypt or South Africa. But that had left his mind as soon as his spotter caught sight of PLA.

Now though, it all seemed to fall in place. As he looked through the scope of his CheyTac Intervention, he could see the insignia on the arm of the leader of the group. It was MARCOS. India had sent her finest to retrieve what both USA and China so desperately wanted. And they were ahead of a Navy SEAL team.

"Captain. Those are Indians, right?" Asked his spotter Lieutenant Commander Robert Shepard.

"Yeah," Was all that Tony said.

"How'd they get here before us?"

"Hell if I know son," Said he with a certain demeanour that reminded Robert how pissed off Gallegos had been to be assigned to this particular mission. If not for the years Robert had spent with him, he wouldn't have picked it, the anger buried deep under the stoic face that he wore. He continued, "And it looks like they're packing up."

"So what do we do?"

"What can we do? Allied Nation. Can't fire on them. And it's MARCOS so we can forget about retrieving it by stealth."

"So, we just sit here?"

"Pretty much."

And with that they both turned to their devices. He had to admit, India scored a big one with this. It was nothing compared to what China and USA already had. They both had scored two bases each in the last two years. India just got it's first. That too in hostile territory. But with this India became the only other nation besides the former two to have access to something that could change the face of politicking on Earth, forever. And with the political conundrums that India was going through, with that modernising and all that stuff, it could very well get a permanent seat on Security Council.

He took a deep breath and picked up his Intervention again, this time his scope towards the western horizon waiting for his Chinese counterparts to show up.

* * *

 **SENSISTIVE ENGAGEMENTS SQUAD ALPHA, MARCOS, Undisclosed location,**

 **Democratic Republic of Congo, 2019**

Major Rajesh Khatri wasn't happy as well. Diwali was approaching and after three counter-terrorist operations in and near Wular Lake, that too with only one injured, one would think they'd be cleared to at least spend Diwali with their family. But apparently Major General at RAW thought now was a good time to send Khatri for his tour to Africa. He couldn't complain. Trip in Cairo had been amazing. South Sudan was a clusterfuck as always, but the Blue Helmets there kept him from getting killed. Everything was great until some up-start ensign showed up in middle of Johannesburg tour with Class 2 Mark Shakti orders. When you got Class 2 that too with a Shakti mark, you'd do good to put any plans for downtime in the recycler.

Now though, his feeling were a mash of anger and excitement as he held the strange hexagonal contraption in his hand. It was very much like the one he'd seen during his briefing. They called this ProTech and it's hitherto owners, Protheans.

He liked the sound of that. Protheans. ProTech, not so much.

While they were on the way to the site his team had been crazed about the possibilities that could arise from this alien technology. That is, if this was indeed alien. Could be an advanced civilisation that preceded humanity, couldn't it? The unison heard from scientific community at such questions was a unanimous NO. And he couldn't argue, the evidence of this being of extra-terrestrial origins was over-whelming, that being the job of goggle-heads back in Delhi . Though the strange blue-green aura was kind of a giveaway of this being something special, not human-made. Still, this didn't ease things.

Especially religious. Implications were huge. He used to laugh his ass off when he saw that Ancient Alien stuff on TV with his son. His son was so crazed about it that he considered discontinuing the channel. But he wasn't laughing now. At least not at the concept. He'd still have no problem laughing at the presenters of that show.

"Sir, we're done. I suggest we leave now."

His sub-ordinate Captain Sharma said, pointing to Dhruv that was just powering up. He gave the structure they had just emerged from one last look. As opposed to other 'bases' discovered, this one was just an outpost, most likely to monitor one of the humanity's offshoot species. As such there wasn't much to be recovered here. A Dhruv could easily fit an MARCOS squad and the technology they had recovered. But the mention of the so-called friends hadn't escaped his notice.

"Heat signatures," said Captain.

"IFFs ?"

"No Sir,"

"Stance ?"

"Seems like they're holding back,"

"Hmm. Let's not test their patience. Onto the chopper, now."

And so the leader and his lance went into their ride back home.

* * *

Everybody's mind, from the pilot of Dhruv to Captain Tony to the yet-to-arrive PLASOF was pondering only one thing. The Wonder's the Prothean technology holds and the horrors it might unleash. Among the differing opinion only one thing was for sure. That the Pale Blue Dot will never be the same again.

* * *

Author's Note : Just a idea I had of what would have happened had there been prothean outpost on Earth as well. As you can tell this will be heavily AU. I don't own anything here. Mass Effect is owned by Bioware and EA.


End file.
